


Polarization

by Stormking



Series: Ion Pulse [2]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Far Future, Gen, Robots, Space Opera, Space Stations, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-09-19 13:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17002296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormking/pseuds/Stormking
Summary: The habitat was holding together, the alien rabbit a closely held secret. As much as Bogo tried, the situation wasn’t exactly under control. All it might take is one mammal with large ears.





	1. Pole

**Author's Note:**

> The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, and so on...

_Fifty hours later, Habitat 87, 5 th belt_

 

Sec Station five-two was descending slowly into chaos. The lights had gone out without warning, and in space, that was usually all that kept you alive.

With the habitat so close to panic, the majority of the burden fell to the the mammals in security to maintain order. These mammals that were feeling the same lack of stability as everyone else, who had family and friends asking them what was happening, why the power had failed, and if they were all going to suffocate in vacuum soon – they had to turn them away, not having any more insight, any real faith that things would work out. The council’s sparse statements that the worst was over and power would be gradually restored did not sooth many minds, especially when two days later, nothing had visibly been improved.

Idris Bogo was at the heart of it all, though not by choice.

“Listen, Chief,” the red fox implored him again, ”I know you need everyone on duty, but I can’t say I’m doing much good on the streets right now. My family lives in the commune at the edge of the woods, they’re a bit isolated but things are just as bad out there. If you’d let me take a few days, I think I’d actually be able to help them and keep the peace out there.”

Bogo huffed. “Warstein, the edge of the woods isn’t anyone’s concern right now. If there are really dangerous riots, they’re going to start right here at the population centers. So you’ll do yourself a favor and stop that from happening. This will keep your family safer than anything else.”

“But-”

“Dismissed.”

The fox tried with the puppy eyes for a few more seconds before nodding slowly and heading out the door, tail dragging behind. Bogo had around five such chats each day now and it certainly didn’t make him more popular with the mammals on the station. A part of him would have felt bad for it, but he couldn’t allow himself such luxuries. Not at a time like this.

For if all of the unrest among his own team wasn’t bad enough yet, the council had also decided to stash an alien in the house next to his station. The good relations he had fostered over the years were coming back to bite him now, for they did trust in his ability to help keep that house secured on top of everything else, but not enough to listen when he said the alien was best kept far away from here.

Now he had the council’s own team running around his station, doing their own business, while he tried to keep everything running. The only saving grace was that nobody knew that the alien was here. If that changed, this house of cards would come crashing down immediately. They had to figure out what to do with their guest, and fast.

Putting her in a secured apartment – since the station hadn’t had prisons for over a hundred years now – was a slap-dash solution at best. Relying on secrecy more so than anything else. Even most of his team didn’t know what they were guarding there and Bogo didn’t like it. But it was either that or put the rabbit looking alien into space. From the reports he’d read, the alien might not even be inconvenienced by that.

But should they treat the first member of another civilization that way? That was what really split the council – and Bogo’s head.

He’d been in the position of Chief for over a decade. You didn’t have a leadership position for that long without running into a number of situations that felt like they were above even your pay-grade. Bogo had his fair share of them and dealt with them by delegating to people who were qualified for it then.

This time, nobody really fit that description.

Like an itch in his horns slowly making his way into his skull, the situation spiraled out of control under him. As much as he planned and moved his team into the best strategic positions, managed team compositions and rotations, kept the council team from interfering too much and tried to teach them how to not be a hindrance at the same time, he couldn’t really make a dent in the mountain before him.

He called Wilde into his office – again. He could talk to him over the v-phone, since it was his day off, but the damn things were unreliable even for him now, so he ordered the fox in. If he knew Wilde at all, he would saved him from a day of not getting out of bed. Sure, the fox had earned a few days off after his mission and subsequent interviews by the council team, but nobody should just let themselves go that much!

His notion was confirmed when Wilde came in and just glowered at him, fur disheveled and eyes small. Looking like he hadn’t slept well on top of everything. Bogo suppressed the feeling of compassion. He had bigger problems to worry about.

“I want to go over your report, Wilde,” he opened.

The response was a weary exhale and the fox sinking into the hard chair as if it was the most comfortable seating arrangement ever. He flicked on the transcriber and said: “Interview with Nicholas Wilde, 5th of October 243. Topic is his report on the events of the 3rd. First question…” Bogo hadn’t actually had time to make up specific questions, but he sure had enough on his mind. But as he looked at Wilde’s unusual stoic face, he suddenly realized he was already generating more resistance than anything else. After a moment of hesitation he reached forward and flicked the transcriber off again.

Wilde cocked his head in curiosity.

“Guess you’ve had enough of interviews for a while.”

“Interrogations, you mean,” Wilde’s voice was thick with disdain.

Bogo huffed. “I’m not fond of the council’s team going over my head.” That was all Wilde was going to get on that matter. Really, Bogo was furious they would grab and interrogate one of his own while he was writing a report on the incident. His personal opinion was more and more that the council had no real clue how to handle the situation – but they were the topmost government of the habitat, and he was a part of that governance structure, so he had to keep that opinion out of his professional life.

“Then what else is there, Chief? I would would really like to keep this short and return to the loving embrace of my blankets again.”

Bogo grunted and refused to be petty about who of them had accrued more sleep-deprivation in the last fifty hours. “About the alien: you were rather vocal in your report on how to deal with it.” And not the funny kind that he usually used to lighten up these reports either. He’d never seen Wilde so serious on something, specifically not when arguing to detain someone.

“I did. What is there to add? We can’t walk down the street without seeing the damage done by this one little robot.”

Bogo didn’t have to glance outside. Even his own office was only half as bright as it used to be with the station running on emergency power, all life support barely holding together. Every day he felt like his eyes had lost another year of life-time from the strain.

“You were very specific in your dislike for this alien. It makes me wonder where this is coming from, since there is no mention of aggressive behavior in your mission report. The psychologists who have done a first evaluation of the specimen agree so far. Did something else happen before the station brown-out?”

Wilde shrugged. “I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how I’m not very fond of robots in general, Chief. This one isn’t an exception. It might not come up much in our day-to-day work, but it didn’t get less true over the years.”

“The experts’ opinion as to the biological status of the alien is still-”

“They can stick their expert opinions somewhere else, for all I care. I don’t need someone else to tell me if that is a damn robot. Or close enough that it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Are you willing to share where this antipathy is rooted in?”

Wilde chuckled for a moment, looking away. “I’m afraid if you expect a big, dark origin story, where malfunctioning farm-bots slaughtered my whole family, I have to disappoint, Chief. For me it’s just that you can’t really talk to robots. They might pretend otherwise, sure! With their smart voice interfaces, trying to suggest that they’re mammals, or close enough, and you can trust them… but it’s a charade and I despise it.

“That ‘rabbit’ is no different in that regard. Try to reason with it, you might as well talk to your fridge for all the good it’ll do you.”

Bogo nodded. “And that is all that influences your opinion on the subject?”

“Well, I think we’re all at least a bit miffed about whatever it did on the station’s generator,” Wilde said, crossing his arms.

“Ah, yes. I suppose you haven’t read the latest reports yet,” Bogo said. “It opens some disturbing questions about the generator.”

Wilde barked a mirthless laugh. “I hope you don’t believe anything this ‘rabbit’ says without fact-checking it.”

“The engineer-corps is working on over-time to find out just what the alien did to the generator.” Bogo mentioned, not bothering to tell Wilde to shut up for a moment. That would only make him more vocal.

“What it told us,” he continued, “was that it was acting in good faith, when it attacked the generator. Or rather, that it defended itself. The security cams seem to support that claim at least, and the wounds that it sustained are quite real.”

“Defended itself against the generator? I didn’t know a power plant had agency.”

“That is the disturbing part. The alien claims that these generators have built-in artificial intelligence. One that has been dormant until it came in range of the station’s sensors, or so it thinks. The bottom line is that we are living on a giant autonomous factory.”

Wilde opened his mouth for a retort – and then closed it again. Sleep deprived as they both were, Bogo could still see the realization setting in that he had gone through himself. All that they knew about these habitats (and all that they didn’t know, like who built them and why) was somehow fitting too well with this new piece of information.

“…and why would a factory have such a grudge against a robot?”

“They were at war, apparently. Long before we colonized this sector.”

“You can’t really believe this robot spent a millennia or more over in that burnt-out husk of a tube,” Wilde scoffed.

Bogo leaned forward. “I don’t know what to believe, Wilde. But in a situation such as this, we should be very careful before we do something we can’t take back later.”

“Such as pissing off an alien civilization we know nothing about yet, on the small off-chance that the robot is telling the truth.”

“Exactly.”

Wilde scratched himself behind his ears, a weary and strangely vulnerable looking gesture for the fox. “So what do you need me for, Chief? I’m not exactly trained to be an ambassador to alien robots either.”

“You’ve been with this alien ten days longer than any of us. And yes-” he quickly raised his hoofs to quell the coming injection.”- I know you haven’t talked much during that time. But it’s still better than nothing.”

“Right, whatever. What do you need me to do?”

“The alien is currently held in a secure apartment next to the station; comfortable, but under surveillance. Council teams are pouring over the videos and transcripts, but I want your personal opinion on them, as well.”

“I suppose I can do that.”

“Good.” Bogo nodded. “Come back tomorrow and I’ll have access set up on your desk.”

“Right.” The fox got up, but turned back before he reached the door. “One more thing, though. Who knows that our new friend is here, on this belt?”

“This is a strictly need-to-know matter.”

“It hasn’t ever been our motto to keep info from the mammals we protect.”

“No, it has not. But my hoofs are tied on that matter, as well.” The sooner the council interference in his business was over with, the better for all of them.

They might be listening closely to his opinion on this matter, but his best source of information was Wilde. And Bogo wasn’t sure if the fox could work around his own biases.


	2. Positron

_Later that same day_

 

The mag-rails had been scaled back drastically, becoming a strictly regulated dance of rail-carts so that never more than ten were running across the whole station. Mammals were miffed, didn’t know how to get from point A to B, now that you couldn’t just walk up to the next station and expect a train within two minutes. They actually had to learn how to travel, how to coordinate. Finnick thought it was a fucking riot to watch. Hilarious enough to make him endure the brutal shifts they had all engineers pulling, just to keep the station’s life support systems from collapsing.

Having access to near limitless energy was one of the fundamentals this place was built on. The sand fox had seen this first-hand over the years of crawling around in its bowels. Barely any jumpers against overload and hard plugs to section off parts of the grid. Now he had to crawl around down there and unplug the non-essential parts with a wire cutter. Very fun with live wires. But safety regulations took a back seat, when the survival of the habitat was on the line.

Now, after sixteen hours of work his body was ready to give out and sleep for a whole day, but he was having other plans. It had been two days since the lights went out and Finnick wasn’t one to put his head under a pillow and wait it out. Apart from his job, he had one more connection to this whole glorious mess that he wanted to keep tapped for news. His apartment was only a block away and Finnick had a key for emergencies.

The emergency right now was that the line at the food distribution warehouse went around the block and Finnick would rather kill a mammal than waste his time waiting in line at a time like this.

With barely any personal transportation available safe for the mag rails, mammals just flogged to whatever storage was closest, clogging up the barely-lit streets in the centers. All the regular street and building lighting was disabled, while power was low, and the station had opened more of its window tiles to provide a minimum of illumination around the clock.

“Rise and shine, Wilde!” Finnick shouted as he kicked open the door.

“Wha’?” Came a sleepy response from the bean bag chair. “What are you doing here?”

“C’mon, you can’t sleep through this! Didn’t’ya always say that every year is just the same? Well hooray for you, cause you finally got your wish!”

Wilde groaned. “Finnick, what the hell? I didn’t want a fricking apocalypse.”

“Don’t be a little wimp. We all got front-row seats to the biggest shit-show that’s going to happen in our lives. Hell, maybe the last! Tell me this isn’t the greatest thing that could ever happen to us?”

“You… are positively insane now.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure gone, Wilde? Thought you didn’t like always seeing the same movies and books about meeting aliens. Now we get this!”

“How’s this any better?”

“Coz it’s real, you dumb-ass. We get to live it, not see some limp, dolled up story version later. Mammals here will have the real story to tell.”

“Or none at all.”

“That’s what makes it interesting! And you spent ten days with that alien already and you’re still in one piece! How bad can it be! Didn’t you learn anything?”

“Except that it’s a brash, demanding robot with no sense of decorum? No.”

“C’mon, you gotta have somethin’ better than that. If it’s a robot, who made it? I only got a look at it from some blurry-ass security cams. Could barely make out it looks like a rabbit.”

“It looked filthy, there’s your detail.” He dragged a paw over his eyes and leaned back. “Now will you please let me sleep?”

“Filthy, huh. Like it really was living on a dead station for centuries? Still can’t wrap my head around that. How could any lifeform survive in hard vacuum for so long. And the orbit is so far out, you’d need some giant solar panels.”

“I don’t know, Finnick. Ever think it could’ve just lied to us?”

“A lyin’ robot, alright. Not any stranger than one that can punch out giant reactor cores. Got any ideas on why it did that, by the way? Or do you think it just wants to wipe us all out? Coz if so, it failed hard. We’ on this shit now, we’re making it work.”

Wilde groaned. “Actually, it claims it wanted to save us from an evil A.I. that was in the reactor and that woke up when it came close or something. Sounds like a load of crap if you ask me.”

Finnick hardly listened, his eyes gone wide, as the idea settled in. “Fo’ real? Holy shit, Nick, that could- Is that true?”

“They don’t know yet.” He sat up straight again. “I was kinda hoping you’d laugh at it.”

“Oh, I’m laughing, all right. But not for the reason your lame ass is thinking. This is even better than I thought. But all these dead cable networks at the core – it kinda makes sense! Oh, wait till I tell the others on the crew, they’re gonna have a field day. Does anyone know yet?”

Wilde shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. I don’t even know if you’ve got clearance. Nor do I care…”

“Tha’s right. Like most mammals on the street don’t even believe that there’s an alien, coz they didn’t see the tapes yet? How messed up is that! Screw the council.”

He made a decision that he would take a more direct approach to this mystery and hopped from the couch. “You stay in bed, if you want to, but I got better things to do.”

“Didn’t you just come back from a double shift?” Wilde called after him.

“Rest is for the dead, loser!” Finnick called back and slammed the door after him.

He couldn’t believe what a pathetic bag of fur Wilde could be at times.

Finnick was still wearing the gear from his shift, tool belt, harness, and all. He opted to change at home, not in the (for him) oversized on-site barracks. As a result, most mammals couldn’t tell that he was off-shift. A fact that he frequently made use of, though rarely was security so tight than around his current target.

How they expected to be inconspicuous was beyond him. Anyone with eyes could see that this one building in the belt was practically surrounded by security. It was right next to the security station, but the mammals at the entrances weren’t from around here. Not for their species, they were ungulates, lupines and a couple of vulpine species, same as what you’d find in anywhere on the station. Wilde always thought Finnick didn’t pay attention to mammals, and maybe he was right, machines were a lot easier to decipher than living beings, but it didn’t take a genius to realize they lacked the more relaxed posture that was native to Belt Fivers. A stark contrast to the pack who were slouching at the entrance to the actual security station.

Also, when they spoke they leaned towards each other in the most ridiculously conspicuous way.

Someone had put mammals there and told them to be subtle when they clearly didn’t know how. As a result, getting in was as easy as walking into the side entrance and nodding to the tired looking wolf behind the makeshift desk.

Finnick looked around and then asked: “Maintenance shaft access?”

Wolf jerked his muzzle to the left. “Last door down the hall. Something broke again?”

“Gotta check some mic shielding. Gets too much static or whatever.” It wasn’t a question if the alien was under constant surveillance or not.

“Try to be quiet then. Our guest has big ears.”

Finnick grunted and walked off. It always helped to look just as weary and exhausted as the mammal you were talking to. Finnick didn’t need to play the role, either, he basically had to drag himself up the ladder and into the small space between the floors.

To his surprise, he heard two voices through the ceiling tiles below him. Both female, but one was definitely a vixen, the other he could not place. Didn’t sound like any robot he’d ever heard either.

Quietly he made his way to the nearest mic cluster, trying not to drag his knees over the metal bridge, and plugged in his diagnostic kit. Just in case someone would check later. Waiting for it to run gave him time to listen.

“…and how is your hand now, Miss Hopps?”

“Unchanged.”

“If you would let us take a closer look, I’m sure we-”

“I am not letting you put me under.”

This ‘robot’ had an attitude that almost made the sand fox snicker. And she wasn’t very trusting – good on her!

“I am sorry to hear that,” the vixen continued. “That’s all I have for now. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”

“When can I get out of here?” It sounded a little bit pouty, like the question had been posed before.

“Soon, Miss Hopps. We just have to break this news gently. I’m sure you understand that a visitor as foreign as you are popping up out of nowhere could create a lot of unrest.” After a moment a chair scraped over the floor. “Don’t hesitate to call me, if you need something else. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The vixen left and Finnick moved to unplug the diagnostic kit. Just as he had his paws around it however, it emitted the two shrill beeps marking a problem. Finnick cursed himself for not silencing it after plugging it in.

“What was that? Is somebody there?”

The fox held his breath, but something must have given him away, for but a moment later, the ceiling tile next to him fell out and a paw shot through to grab his foot and yank him down. It went so fast he didn’t even have time to hold on to something.

He found himself on the carpeted floor, staring up at a furious looking rabbit. “What in the void are you doing in my ceiling?”

“Just maintenance, Miss,” was his automatic answer. Usually that worked, reminded them to take a look at his gear and confirm the story in their head, but not this time.

She looked up instead. “Are those- microphones? I have been nothing but cooperative! And you’re putting me-” Both her paws were balled into fists now.

Finnick desperately wanted to be somewhere else and decided to take a gamble before the situation derailed further. “Want me to disable them?” he asked and used the second she was confused to stand up and take a step back, just to get her out of his personal space again.

“Why would you do that? Aren’t you working for them?” she asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously – but not angry anymore so he counted that as a win.

“Indirectly, but so what? You never disagreed with your boss before?”

“I… don’t know. Wait – yes! I did!” She was suddenly grinning. Finnick didn’t know what to make of it. When she saw his face she added: “I have amnesia, I barely remember anything from where I came from. But you made me remember that I once disobeyed orders.”

Finnick couldn’t help but chuckle. “Glad to be of service. Look, I’ll disable the mics in this room, but they’ll send someone else to fix them within the hour. Don’t know where you’re from, but I bet your people would also put an alien guest under surveillance for a while.”

She leaned against the couch, carefully laying her right arm on the cushion. It was wrapped in white bandages, both paw and upper arm. The rest of her was in navy dress blues, some uniform they must have resized for her in a hurry. Since Finnick had seen the tapes, he could wager a good guess where her injuries came from. Oh, what he’d give to take a closer look, but as suspicious as she was, asking directly was out of the question.

“I guess you’re right.” She let out a resolute sigh. “You’ll find the exit, I’m sure. I have to think for a while..”

Finnick looked up at the corner of the room where the ceiling tile had been removed. How in the void was he getting back up there? The ceiling wasn’t that high, but there was nothing tall enough he could put under the hole to climb up there.

“What’s the hold-up?” she asked.

“I need to repair this.”

“Fine, I’ll hand you the tile when you’re up there again. You can take the door, it’s unlocked.”

This just wasn’t his day. “I’d… rather not take the door. It’s actually a bit of an embarrassment, getting caught by you.” He could see instantly that she wasn’t buying it. He’d always been a shitty liar when it came down to it.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, realization dawning with what looked like curiosity.

Finnick shrugged. Should he make a break for it? Nah, she didn’t seem angry – yet. And she certainly was faster than him.

“So, who are you, really?”

There goes nothing. “Just someone who saw the videos of you fighting some drones and punching out the reactor core. Can’t fault me for being curious after that wicked show.”

Her face fell almost instantly. “I had to do it!” she implored. “We would all be doomed, if I hadn’t!”

Sheesh, did all rabbits have mood swings like that? Or just the semi-robotic ones? Finnick made a mental note that she was a lot more unpredictable than he’d pegged her so far. “Hey, slow down, I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

She froze, then nodded once.

“Besides, my buddy already filled me in about the A.I. theory.”

“It’s not a theory.”

“Yeah, I believe it. I’ve crawled around the insides of this station enough to see it fits.”

“Really? Will you confirm it then? I know they don’t really believe I’m telling the truth yet.”

Finnick certainly wasn’t the type to put himself in the spotlight like that, especially if it’d result in explaining a lot of uncomfortable things, like how he got go that knowledge in the first place. But he was already planning on passing it on to everyone in the engineering team who could confirm the story themselves. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks. In return, I’ll forget that you’ve been here.”

“Help me get back up there and you got yourself a deal,” he smirked.

He didn’t expect her to just throw him, but he managed to grab hold of the beam and drag himself up into the crawlspace. When he looked down, he saw her holding the missing tile up. He grabbed it. “Pleasure meeting you, rabbit.”

“Same. It’s nice to have a visitor who isn’t here _just_ to question me.”

Finnick grunted and, with a final nod, popped the ceiling tile back into its place before going on to erase the last few minutes from all the microphones he could find. Having her cooped up in here, isolated from the station was no fun. But the risk of drawing security down on his head was big. Then again, his gig in engineering probably gave him a sort of immunity to a lot of repercussions. They wouldn’t dare even having a single member of his team not on duty to help keep the life support running.

Back down at the side entrance, he saw the vixen lingering, talking to the wolf at the desk. She was a real looker with neatly trimmed fur under an immaculate pants suit. Not his type at all. And if she went in with that broom up her ass then it was no wonder she didn’t get any results.

He nodded to the guard again and slipped out behind her back.


	3. Photon

_The next day_  


 

When awake, Wilde had no memories of his dreams, only a lingering sense of dread.

Then it was restless twisting and turning for who knows how long before drifting back to what had to suffice as sleep. Rinse and repeat. It was a good thing that all the clock displays were hidden from his position in the nest he’d made himself on the bean bag.

Getting up for some fresh air, showering, eating, exercising was only done out of necessity. Whenever he was up, that annoying pressure on his skull and ears seemed worse. Everything felt muffled, like during the onset of a cold, causing him to make a quick retreat back under his blankets. The urge to try and hibernate was strong. The world out there could be somebody else’s problem for the time being.

When his set alarm tore even that pitiful rest from him, all he wanted to do was throw it against the wall. The shrill beeping tore into his ears and made him rue the day he’d bought this retro styled junk. Maybe he could say his room system malfunctioned and he just didn’t wake up in time – for the next thirteen hours. But no, Bogo would see through that. Still, the thought of telling Bogo where to stick the shift or even just to quit had never been so tempting.

But it was a passing fancy. No matter how sluggish and tired he felt, there was still a part of him that craved to do something, anything, just to feel useful in some manner. So he gave in, rolled himself out of bed and dragged himself into the shower.

The streets were swamped and so was transportation. If he didn’t get a reserved seat for working in security, he might have waited for hours to actually get to work. What a madness. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone as he shoved himself inside and sat down, nor for the entire ride. Nobody said anything and he took it as a gift and kept his gaze locked out the window.

The scenery that shot by outside made him think the station’s population had quadrupled since he had come back with how many people were on the streets, standing in groups at street corners and around shops. Of course, no sudden population boom had occurred, it was just that with all that uncertainty floating around everyone was congregating towards the belts. Those who lived on the edges of the belt, or near the window panes now flocked towards the center, lest they be cut off completely. Everything seemed darker, and the forests beyond the belt most of all.

Limited food distribution only amplified that effect, the automated conveyors that once filled your fridge suddenly dead. Having to get your own food, having to make time for that and wait in line for it was not a welcome development for anyone. Wilde could feel that the station was close to outright unrest, and he hated it. This was his home, dammit. But what could he have done differently?

He should be out there to help reassure mammals, but why would they even listen to him? Maybe it was better for Bogo to give him a desk job for the moment. He didn’t really like the assignment, but doing damage control on this mad robot – well, maybe it was a task he had earned.

Stepping back into the lobby actually felt a bit more comfortable, a familiar space that was bustling more than ever. He was surrounded by a skulk of his colleagues as soon as he was through the door. There was a lot of back-slapping and hoping to see him back on patrol. The story of what had happened to him had already spread like a wild-fire, just like the confidential info about the alien guest, apparently. Wilde could tell they were all hoping to swap stories with him over lunch and hid a small wince. He was not looking forward to talking about that.

But when it came down to it, now that he was back in the fray, here to do his part, he’d wouldn’t give the Chief something to moan about.

His desk was set up with access to all the surveillance on the robot the chief had. From the moment it entered the station to yesterday. There was also a list of timestamps Bogo wanted analyzed as a priority. Otherwise, he could go through them in whatever order he thought best. There was already more than he could watch in days, but each video file had a searchable, automatically produced transcript, so he didn’t have to scan through the long stretches of silence.

So prepared, he got comfortable, plugged in his ear buds and pulled up the first timestamp. It was only six hours after the generator had gone down. The transcript file didn’t give him more context than that so he dove right in.

The first conversations contained nothing surprising. Hopps was getting visited by a doctor, an engineer for robotics, and a vixen which he supposed was an agent of the council. He checked the video at the timestamp to get an idea of the context he was reading. They asked it the questions you’d want to ask a possibly hostile entity. Trying not to offend it in case it was more aggressive than it looked. Hopps’ answers to them were tense and one-worded. The doctor couldn’t make head or tail from her physiology, but neither could the robotics engineer. Hopps declined letting them take a proper physical, opting to stay awake while they took a look at the injured paw. Apparently the paw was still hurting, and the engineer commented on the heat radiating from it.

Wilde perked up at one of the robot’s comments that it was still flesh and bone underneath. He supposed they should be able to verify that even without her consent and marked it down in case nobody else had. He wondered if that may be possible, for a living creature to be trapped inside that faux fur and skin. No, probably not. His imagination didn’t go _that_ far.

The next conversation was with the vixen alone, as she started interrogating the robot on where it had come from. Trying to establish a timeline, standard stuff. Wilde didn’t learn anything new, Hopps gave the same answers as it had given to him. Amnesia, and a thousand years or more on the other station. When the vixen dug further and asked how one can survive on your own in an abandoned station, the robot said it didn’t have to eat, but was able to draw power from it’s own reactor.

Wilde commented on the timestamp, so the proclaimed experts didn’t have to think so hard when trying to decipher the “biological status”.

What he didn’t understand was why it didn’t even try to come up with a somewhat convincing lie. And if it didn’t want to hide the fact that it was a robot, why not admit that outright, and instead claim it was a rabbit from Earth. He didn’t put a comment down for that yet, feeling like he needed to develop that thought further before presenting it. The bottom line was that this thing was dangerous. Insanely so, considering what it had done to their generator. Nobody would doubt that at least.

But the question was if they could safely jettison it into space or if they somehow needed it. Be that to undo the damage done, of because it was sent by some other, powerful civilization that would attack them if they insulted their weird ambassador.

Wilde was used to dealing with mammals, not aliens, but he tried to put himself into the place of an alien anthropologist – a job he was sure didn’t exist yet, but one day might. As such, could this robot possibly be the olive branch of another species, optionally a robotic one? Something that had studied them from afar and then sent this drone to them?

No, that was stupid. Why would it lie about it? Except there was this whole amnesia business.

This was going nowhere yet and so he scanned the next conversation. They were full of empty phrases (on the side of the vixen) and short answers from Hopps. They never outright threatened it, but made allegations that cooperation would be required to get anywhere. Meaning Hopps was stuck there for now, since it also didn’t trust the council to not take it apart or disable it if it let them.

There were conversations where they tested her knowledge of Earth. Hopps could name all the mammals shown to it and even claimed to have worked with some of them – some of which were extinct in the colonies. The vixen only nodded and didn’t press the question further. A rookie mistake.

Finally he got to the conversation in which Hopps said their habitat was a factory. A factory for creating war machines. A chill went down Wilde’s spine as he read this again, remembering Finnick’s reaction. Surely there had to be another explanation, something simpler. It was usually the simplest explanation in his line of work. And the fact that they (and all the other colonies) had found inactive war factories which were somehow perfect for colonization – only for one of them to come alive all off a sudden – this seemed a little bit too contrived for him.

One thing he couldn’t blame Hopps for was not trusting the council. He doubted that he would, in its place. They were all sweet and honeyed words, but it was a thin facade and it was clear to him now that they didn’t have a proper ambassador either. That wasn’t a job anymore. There were no more nation states like back on Earth, and the different stations hardly got into each other’s business, with distance being what it was. So whoever they had unearthed to put in front of Hopps didn’t have better credentials than he had.

  


On the second day of recordings, Hopps started to talk to itself. Wilde took a moment to understand what was going on and had to call up the video feed to see for himself that the robot was still alone.

Mesmerized he stared at the screen, seeing Hopps curled up on the couch in the simple blue pants and shirt combo. Her upper right arm and paw was bandaged and held close, the other playing absently with one of the cushions. The transcript forgotten, Wilde focused on the audio. Slightly muffled, but clear enough to hear the nuances of a voice.

“Didn’t expect to end up a prisoner. Good ol’ Judy, naive till the end. How are you going to pull yourself out of this one?”

A shudder ran down his spine. It was so unexpected, so uncanny- he couldn’t suppress a spike of sympathy.

“What if they’re lying? What if they just want you to be cooped up and isolated here? You could have fallen into some backward dictatorship without any real news reporting and wouldn’t know.”

Eventually Wilde paused and took a step back from the situation. He felt like he’d just spied on a person, seeing her at a vulnerable moment. Except it was a robot. He shut his eyes tight to shut out the image on the screen. He had to think rationally; he couldn’t miss the big picture. This was too important.

The pressure on his head, his ears, was back, making it harder and harder to think straight. It was possible the robot knew she was under surveillance. In fact, it was naive not to assume as much. Then it followed that this might be an intentional attempt at persuasion, an appeal to conscience not to incarcerate another mammal. Why shouldn’t a robot be able to lie convincingly, after all?

Except that this wasn’t convincing at all. The delivery was, but the story still made not a lick of sense to him. If this was an alien, what malicious intentions could hide behind it’s actions? Spread dissent among them? Be the carrier for some virus that would do them in? Act as a sort of homing beacon for a fleet bearing down on them?

Okay, none of these made even a smidgeon of sense and he felt like he was re-hashing bad movie plots.

Wilde shook his head and decided to take a proper break. He was getting too deep into the what-ifs and it wasn’t helping his headache. Not to mention that thinking so detached made him feel dirty. He had signed up to help people, not… whatever it was he was doing right now.

But this alien wasn’t a person, it was a robot, built and programmed by someone. He had to remind himself of that. And yet – the part of him that never let him get away without a self-awareness check threw some doubts into this flawless rhetoric.

He could be wrong. He could just be objectifying this female rabbit. He could be so sure about what she was or wasn’t, that he had started to outright demonize her.

Or he could just be in way over his own head, grasping at straws, trying to mold this situation into something that felt at least a bit familiar.

The only thing he knew for certain was that he needed more than a five minute break.

 


	4. Electron

_Two days later_

 

It was said that an unsteady leader made the mammals under him nervous. But not even in his dreams would Wilde have imagined that could happen with Bogo. The chief had gotten an increasing micro-manager and all of his colleagues were groaning about it. And even if Wilde wasn’t as affected by it as the others, he still had little status meetings with him at every start and end of his shift.

Yesterday he hadn’t brought up the thoughts, the doubts that had kept him up late.

He still didn’t know what to say about it. Maybe he should just show him what he’d found. Why hadn’t the Chief marked it before? Had none of the other ‘experts’ noticed Hopps talking to herself?

He’d turned it over ten ways in his head, replayed it over and over. His senses, everything he’d seen said that Hopps was a robot. But his gut told him she wasn’t, and that he wasn’t fooled. Which was true in his experience. When he was dealing with people, Wilde had learned to trust his gut.

As impossible as that was, considering the length of time that Hopps claimed to have existed. All of this boiled down to mean this wouldn’t be a satisfying meeting for either of them, but it was all he had for the chief that morning.

The meeting never happened.

They just sat down in Bogo’s office, when Wilde heard noise outside. He prompted Bogo to investigate, who huffed at him with a look that said this better not be a joke and turned to the window. Wilde had to jump on the window box to see outside – and nearly fell back down when he laid eyes on the mob in the street below.

There was no other way to call the large bulk of agitated mammals. They weren’t facing the security station, though, but the building next door. The one Hopps was held in. Fists were raised, and mammals were pushing forward, the smaller ones like foxes trying to make room for the large cows and buffaloes. Wilde was stunned to see so much aggression in his normally peaceful belt. Void, he’d walked the streets not an hour ago and nothing had seen amiss.

“Wilde, on me,” Bogo commanded and headed out the door.

One of the other fox guards tried to deliver the news at the same time and got sent on the floor as the door flung open. Bogo stomped right past him. Wilde spared a second to help him up. “We’ve seen it,” he said and then hurried after the chief, a feeling of dread growing in his stomach. All his years in security and he never had to don riot gear. Why now? He was trained for this, but had hoped to never be involved in crowd control. It was all much too direct and violent for his tastes, especially since he had to assume there were mammals he personally knew in that crowd.

Bogo was shouting orders as they went down the staircase. Once Wilde had caught up to him in the lobby, he turned back to the fox and bent down to talk more quietly.

“Take the window in the break room. You’ll be able to jump to the other building from there. Get our guest to another safe house discretely.”

Wilde nodded, but felt like caught in a trance. The window, he could do that. Beyond that, he would have to improvise. Which other safe house was there? He faintly remembered another building that belonged to this station. His legs took him to the upper break room on autopilot while he started to calculate a route in his head.

Making the jump was easy, as long as he didn’t look down. Which he did. At least nobody was looking up, though mammals had started to push into the small alley between the steel walls of the buildings. Two of his larger colleagues were managing to hold them back; it was not the mob’s main focus for the moment.

Wilde fought down the urge to listen to the shouts. He had no time to figure out what exactly they wanted and how he might deal with them. That wasn’t his job today, he had a different one. He should probably be grateful for that. Except it wasn’t just any VIP he had to extract, it was an alien robot and he had no idea if Hopps would even cooperate.

It was better than having to face a mob, though. He still had trouble believing that the mammals on belt five would suddenly riot like that. Over what? The existence of an alien? Did they want to lynch her? What good would that do? The insanity of it all made his head spin.

He jumped the gap, landed hard on the metal floor and raced down the stairs. He had to shout to get the attention of the guard, who was standing at the exit door to see anything that broke through the ranks of the bulls outside.

“Hey!”

“What? Wilde? Where did you-”

“Chief wants the alien moved. How do I get in?”

The gray wolf silently pointed at the door behind Wilde and turned back to the alley. He took it as a sign that they didn’t have much time left. But no keys or anything? Wilde threw the door open. Hopps, who had looked like she had been pacing the room, whirled around and stared at him. Seizing him up to determine if he was a threat. Wilde paused for a moment until he remembered that Hopps had introduced herself as ‘Commander’ the first time they’d met.

“C’mon,” he gestured, “you need a new place to stay.”

Hopps didn’t relax, but she nodded. “Lead the way.”

The wolf at the door was gone and Wilde only realized it by the time he reached the door frame. When he saw his black furred colleague outside, helping the two bulls to hold back the tide. They were being pushed back slowly and only ten steps away from the exit. Their time was running out fast. Since he didn’t even know if there were any other exits – safe for the front entrance, which he was not keen on taking – they had no choice but to leave through here. But the alley should lead somewhere else. He just had to hope that they wouldn’t run into any other mammals.

He gestured to Hopps to stay close and quiet and slipped out the door, down the other way of the alley. A glance back confirmed that she followed him, moving close to the ground on all fours, but at least without making a sound.

They ran down the alley, took a left turn around the security station – and ran into a group of mammals who stopped dead as soon as they saw them. Wilde didn’t need to see that none of them were wearing a uniform to know on which side they were on.

Their surprise didn’t last long, they started pointing and advancing on them. Wilde, who favored a less direct approach than going through an obstacle, moved to backtrack. There was one cross-section they had passed moments earlier. But when they took it, they found themselves facing a fence high enough for a buffalo.

Caught between hammer and anvil, as the saying goes, with the mob stragglers closing in behind them. Hopps wasted no time to jump over the fence and kept going, Wilde following much more slowly, scaling the wire mesh fence by paw. He’d just reached the top, when a hoof closed around his ankle. He tried to kick, to squirm free, and was surprised at the growl that escaped him.

Hopps turned back.

“Keep going,” he called, trying to twist out of the bull’s grip. But he had to keep his paws on the fence or be dragged down.

“What is that?” “Why are you helping it?” He tried kicking again, but the arms were like iron.

Then Hopps was back, perched on top of the fence. She grabbed his arm and yanked him away with ease. Wilde felt like he flew ten meters and hit the ground hard, then got yanked to his feet again before he knew which way was up.

“Come on! I don’t know where to go by myself.” Hopps sounded annoyed, but there was a hint of something else in her voice, though he couldn’t place it right then.

He nodded and took the lead again. His ankle felt like it was on fire now, but he tried not to let it slow him down. They had to take a longer route now, circling around even more building blocks to get back on track. Half-way through, three wolves in blue were joining up with them and Wilde had never been so happy to see backup in his entire career.

“Wilde, you alright?” Blackpaw, the first one of the three female wolves, asked. “We heard you had a scuffle.”

“Word travels fast. Is the mob dissolved already?” he asked.

“No, but Chief thinks you’re more important than a now empty building. Let’s get out of the open.”

“Sure, I-” A howl of pain derailed his train of thought. They whirled around, only to see Hopps had one of the wolves on his knees, paw twisted in front of her.

Her words were seething with anger. “Do. Not! Touch me.”

“Whoa, hey now, you can let her go,” Blackpaw said soothingly. She and her other teammate were circling on Hopps, who’s gaze flickered between them before she let go and stepped back. She seemed to be content to leave it at that, but Wilde noticed with rising terror that Blackpaw was still moving towards her, once Hopps had turned away again. He knew why, too. It was all in the handbook. Standard procedure when dealing with uncooperative VIPs was to subdue them.

But Hopps was no push-over. She heard them coming and jumped gracefully out of reach, crouching low into a combat-ready stance as the two wolves once again started to circle her. Blackpaw glanced at him, since he was still positioned behind Hopps. She thought that with three mammals they could subdue her with ease.

But Wilde saw this escalating into more than sprained paws. He launched himself forward, stepping between Blackpaw and Hopps.

The black wolf nearly snarled in surprise. “What are you doing?”

He could ask her the same thing, but that was a discussion for another time. He donned a smirk instead. “As hilarious as it would be to see all three of you get your asses handed to you by a cute, little rabbit, this isn’t the time or place. Chief is going to be on all our tails, if we get spotted out here.”

Blackpaw bristled, ears flat, but ultimately clamped her teeth together and nodded curtly. “We’ll do it your way, Wilde. Lead the way, we’ll cover the rear.” Her gaze flickered between Hopps and his injured team member that said that she wasn’t about to forget about this.

Wilde couldn’t care less. Hopps had a guarded look on her, now more than ever, but there was nothing he could do about that now. They were still in the open. “Safe house isn’t far,” he said and started moving again. Hopps fell in beside him after a moment.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. “I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“But you did.”

“A lot of people tried to examine me these last days, even against my will. I had to sleep with one eye open.”

Sheesh, he must have overlooked that in the transcripts. “That’s-” Completely insane, what were they thinking? “-bad.” He’d have to see if he could do something about this. At least tell the Chief, he might have some pull.

They made it to the safe house without further incidents. Wilde’s badge got them in. He did a sweep of the inside, while the wolf-trio checked the perimeter.

Hopps started to relax before he did, her ears stopping to swivel every which way. She leaned at the wall of the main room, watching him.

Wilde figured at that point he should report to Bogo. But should he leave Hopps with the wolves? He couldn’t really order them around either.

“Do you need something brought here?” he asked.

She looked at him for a moment, a dead look in her eyes, before she shook her head. “I’m fine.”

Wilde hesitated. He knew it wasn’t a good time, but he didn’t know when he’d get another chance. And for some reason the question never came up on tape. “Hopps, were you telling the truth when you said you’re from Earth?”

She pushed off the wall before answering. “I said I don’t remember if I’ve ever been there in person. But where else would I be from?”

“I… I don’t know.”

A tiny smile grazed her muzzle. “Really, Wilde? Do you think there are alien rabbits out there in the galaxy?”

“Well, it’s not any weirder than having one show up from Earth, the place the colony ships have left behind only what, two thousand years ago? We never heard from them, Hopps. Ever. Not that we expected to.”

“Oh, right. I remember this, I think? As an old story. The colony ships left Terra, because it became uninhabitable? Was that it?”

Wilde was stunned. “What do you mean by ‘old story’? This is our history.”

“Sorry, I can’t really tell you. Most of my old life is still lost in there.” She knocked against her noggin. “So you all think there were no survivors save for the colony ships, because you never were contacted. Maybe there was another reason why you never received any messaged.”

“It’s been over two-thousand years. Not to mention that messages could have reached the colony ships on their journey. They would have been recorded.”

“Assuming there’s no government cover-up, since I’m not really sold on this council you have here now.”

“Can’t blame you there, but they’re more incompetent than anything else.”

“Then maybe there was a reason why Terra didn’t contact you.”

“And what could that be?”

“I don’t know, Wilde. I wish I did. But as you’ve said, it’s been two millennia. A lot can happen in that time.”

“Void,” he cursed under his breath. “Alright, I guess that makes more sense than rabbits from outer space. By a small margin at least.”

She rolled her eyes. “Now what?”

Wilde took a moment to think. First things first, all of these reveals weren’t as urgent as his report now. “I’ll go talk to my boss. If you need anything, this house has a communicator built in.” He pointed at the wall where the access panel was. “Just ask it to be connected to Nick Wilde. Just… don’t hack anything. Please?”

“I’ll try to restrain myself. But thank you. I don’t think I’ll need anything for now…”

Nearly at the exit, he paused. “I hear an exception in there. What is it?”

After a moment she sighed. “This is going to sound weird, but… just someone to talk to, would be nice. Someone who isn’t trying to covertly interrogate me, I mean. It’s just that it’s been so long and my own head feels so full sometimes, I think they’re doing this on purpose, it’s-”

“Hopps.”

She looked up.

“I get it,” he said. With that he fled from the room. Leaned against the door outside and took a deep breath, ignoring the weird looks from Blackpaw.

Yes, he was probably going to go with his gut on that one.

  


  



	5. Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are we having first contact with an alien species? Why are you asking me? I’m a propulsion scientist, not a philosopher!” – Cran Moorehorn, head of interstellar explorations, when questioned on recent events

  
Bogo arrived at the new place just as Wilde left it. Blackpaw and her team were standing around the entrance. Not exactly subtle for a safe-house.

“Perimeter secured?” he asked as he got close enough to talk quietly.

“Yes, Chief,” Blackpaw answered.

“We got the streets back, but have a look around the rooftops,” he instructed. “Just to be sure.”

Blackpaw looked like she had something to say but then just nodded and gestured to her team.

He turned to Wilde next, but the fox interrupted him.

“Do we know what caused this mob to form, Chief?”

He wondered if he should spare enough breath to impress upon the fox how tight of a schedule he was on, but then decided to just sum it up. Who knew, maybe it would have an impact on his own report. With how uncertain everything was today, anything seemed possible. “We do. A message had been broadcasted on an emergency system. It contained the address of the last safe house and a video recording of Hopps disabling the generator.”

“So it was one of ours then.”

“Likely someone on the maintenance crew or someone else with access to the system. It will be hard to track, or so I’m told, but that is not my concern right now.” He stopped and huffed. Pushing things off his mind was getting harder the longer he was awake. “Now, you have something to report?”

The fox, who had stood at rigid attention so far, sighed, shoulders slumping. “A lot, actually.”

“The exec summary will have to do for the moment.”

Wilde nodded. “Hopps then – whatever she is, I don’t think it’s that alien. Or maybe that is even the wrong question. We shouldn’t outright trust her, but maybe trust her a bit more than locking her up. I can’t detect any malice towards us, so maybe an olive branch is in order. Whether she is one or not, treating her like an ambassador should only have positive effects.

“There is the issue of her being dangerous and that is nothing that can be fixed, but keeping an eye on her shouldn’t be an issue. That way, she can help rebuild, not be treated like some prisoner. And as to where she is from-”

“Hold on, Wilde,” Bogo stopped him. “This will have to do for now. We can go into the details another day. For the moment, there is very little time before a decision will be made on her fate.”

“What is going to happen to her?”

Bogo noted the hint of concern. “It is undecided yet, but the arrangement will have to change one way or another. Now that her existence has been made public, the council will make an official announcement at twenty-hundred.

“The engineer corps has handed in its report already and confirmed all claims that Hopps has made so far. I’ll be handing in my own report, but before that, there is one test we need to do, and I want you present for this.”

Wilde nodded, looking curious again.

“I have to warn you, though. The news I am about to deliver is genuine. And if Hopps is not what we thought, she might try to silence us now.”

The fox had a far-away look on him for a moment before he nodded. “I understand, sir. Ready when you are.”

Bogo had to slightly duck to fit through the entrance. Hopps was lying on the couch in the main room, thumbing through an old e-reader that someone had left there. The house had not been prepared for an alien, and while Bogo would have howled at such an oversight at another time, he had more important things to worry about now. “Commander Hopps, I’d like a word with you.”

The rabbit got up, her eyes flickering cautiously between him and Wilde. “And you are?”

“Idris Bogo, Commander of the security team on the 5th belt,” he introduced himself and sat down, so as to loom a little less over the other two.

“Are you… military?” she asked.

“We don’t have military here,” Wilde explained. “He’s simply my boss.”

Bogo nodded. “And I have just received some news that you can probably shed some light on.”

“I don’t see how, but I’ll try,” Hopps said, shrugging.

“After you have arrived, five days ago, we have sent news of the generator failure to our two closest sister habitats. They’re in the next solar system, which makes it a ten day round trip for information.”

He watched Hopps closely as he said this, face and posture. Did she get tense? Ready to jump him? No, she looked like she tried to contain shock.

“We just got word from them, a message they have sent five days ago, saying they are experiencing widespread equipment malfunctions on the habitat.”

“Oh no.” Hopps clapped both hands over her muzzle. “That habitat is of the same make as this one?”

Bogo nodded.

“Long, tube-shaped, with a large Core at one end?”

“Exactly.”

“How many are there?” she asked, the panic now audible in her voice.

Under her piercing glare, Bogo wanted to take half a step back. He exchanged a look with Wilde, who could only shrug. If this was to be a test, then the truth would be the most telling.

“Sixty-three habitats exist that were deemed functional through-out the Tau sector. All of them are currently inhabited.”

Hopps was suddenly standing on the couch table in front of him, and he had to resist an reflex to defend his personal space. “They all are running on the Cores? Using them as generators?” She was nearly shouting now.

“Hopps, calm down, please,” Wilde said. “What’s the matter with that? They have been inhabited for hundreds of years.”

She energetically shook her head, ears flying, and started pacing. “I know I jump to conclusions sometimes. Is there any other possibility that could explain this? Are equipment malfunctions like this common?”

“Not on this level,” Bogo said. “There isn’t a lot of official communication between the habitats, but something like this would be broadcast immediately.”

“Nothing else?” she was practically begging them to find another explanation.

But they could only shake their heads. This was unprecedented.

“Them we’re screwed,” she said. “It’s the Cores. They are all waking up again.”

 

 

Bogo left the house a short time after, with Wilde staying behind. There had been no further information he could use right now and he still had a report to write. It wouldn’t be a conclusive one. But he had to convince the council that they couldn’t just tolerate the rabbit – no, they needed her. Without her, they might be utterly blind for what was coming.

‘Are you military?’ – The question echoed between his horns. There was no military. It hadn’t existed since the colonies had been founded, since there had been no outside threats. And with alloys being as scarce as they were, allocating the huge amount of resources to build any kind of military was just unreasonable. But how else to contest this looming threat?

He was growing tired of only being able to provide an illusion of security for the mammals who put their trust in him and his team. But that would be the content of another report. For now, he could at least make a difference for Hopps.

 

 

When Wilde left he felt utterly drained. But it was different from his last few days. Today had been an overload in information for him and he knew he had to sleep on it to even start to process it. All the revelations about Hopps, the Habitat – no, he couldn’t. Not today. He’d watch the news and go to bed and that was it.

On the plus side, at least his assignment was done now. There hadn’t been one that made him as physically uncomfortable as spying on someone and trying to determine whether or not to throw them out an airlock. But now that her existence was made public, he wouldn’t be needed anymore.

He might drop in at times, have a chat, as offered, and maybe keep an eye on the situation from afar. After all, he was at least somewhat responsible for what happened next. Not only had he been the one to bring her here, but now he’d also vouched for her.

But that was it. He was looking forward to going back to his routine – except would this even be a thing with what was on the horizon?

“Despite your moaning, you’re already in the middle of it again,” came a cackle from above.

Wilde looked up and saw Finnick sitting on an awning, a predatory grin plastered over his face. How in the void– no, he didn’t even want to know. “It’s my job,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re a smart tod, you figure it out.” The fennec jumped from the small roof and fell in step besides him. “So, what’chu think about her now?”

“If that is a robot, then I’ve been asking the wrong questions, it seems.”

“Hah, knew it.”

“She’s still dangerous, though.”

“Good for her. She still quarantined now, or what?”

“Let’s watch the news.”

“Since when do you-”

“You’ll see. Bring a bottle of that brandy and maybe I’ll tell you something else I learned.”

Finnick bristled because he guarded that brandy with the ferocity of a mother guarding her cubs. “…Fine.”

Wilde didn’t feel bad about pushing his buttons. His friend might not know it yet, but soon enough, quiet evenings would be at a rarity. For the moment, Nick was carrying this secret with Bogo and Hopps, the only other two people on the station who knew what was to come. Once it was made public, there was no telling what would happen in Habitat 87, and in all the other colonies.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, all the important pieces are in play.  
> I was originally intending to end this chapter on the reveal of the Cores, but with how long it might take me to get to the next part, I thought I'd end on less of a cliff hanger, and with at least a little denouement, compared to the first part.  
> Special thanks goes again to [Jay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_JSmith/) for beta reading.
> 
> As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.


End file.
